As a part of reaching my goal to do the NVC trip through Europe the summer of 2019, I did a rehearsal this summer of 2018. My goal was to bike from Stockholm to the NVC European Summer Festival at Fynshav in the south of Denmark. My plan was to bike around 170 km each day and reach the venue in five days. When the day for the trip was closing in, I decided to start one day earlier in case of any unfortunate events. Quite soon I found out that this was a wise decision.
Delay
After about 40 km the first evening my one-wheel bike trailer broke down damaging the center of my back wheel. It was already 9pm so I went into the woods and put up my tent for the night. The next morning I went with my bike for two hours back to Södertälje to the bike store Cykeltjänst. I found out that I needed to go back home to get a spare part for my bike and buy a new bike trailer.
To make a long story short I was able to return to my tent with my new bike trailer almost 24 hours after the old one broke down. I packed my tent and continued biking for a couple of hours before going to sleep.
Meeting my friends
As you might know this summer was really hot and shiny, so I had figured out that I could need some rest from the sun during the hottest hours of the day. My first rest from the sun I spent together with my first empathy buddy Emma. We met during Friare Livs one year programme 2009/2010. I was served food and beer, took a swim in the lake and had a couple of hours rest in the shade in the company of Emma and her family. It was really sweet.
Later in the afternoon, when I sat on the bike again, it was actually raining for the first time since ages. I went on for some hours and spent the night beside a lovely lake outside of Svartå. I lost my lamp when packing the tent the next morning and bought a new one later in the day in Lidköping. It was a wise choice. During the day I calculated the distance and the hours until the festival would start. Due to my trailer breakdown and some strange miscalculation of the distance I was way behind schedule. A decision to bike all night and to catch the morning ferry from Gothenburg to Fredrikshavn slowly materialized in my mind.
After riding all night I spent some hours in the harbour of Gothenburg before taking the ferry to Denmark. After riding the bike south for just over an hour I had another pit stop by my friend Lise, whom I got to know during the Euro Life program with Robert Gonzales 2016-2017. Once again I was served food, beer and a swim, this time in the sea. I was able to sleep for a couple of hours as well, while the sun slowly was sinking in the sky.
The hills of Denmark
I started bike again later than planned and I really enjoyed the flatness of Denmark for some hours. That experience eventually changed. Hereby I want to deny all rumors of Denmark as a flat country. I would rather say it is very hilly. The Danes seem to have a fondness in placing their cities in valleys by the sea surrounded by high hills. Soon I came to dread the steep downhill runs, because I knew what was coming afterwards…
I was becoming more and more tired as I tried to catch up with my schedule. The last 70 hours of my trip to Fynshav I biked through all three nights and slept all together for about five hours, most of them by Lise and the rest by slumbering in the shade during the hottest hours of the day. During the second night of biking I was totally wasted. My stomach was hurting, I believed I had gastric ulcer and my biking was very slooow. After some of my distances I made some notes and after this one I wrote “This was a really shitty distance… (some notes I rather not publish)… Slow, pain in the ass and chilly. Moody, grumpy, sullen and whining.”
Almost giving up…
A spoke on my back wheel broke and I got it repaired in a bike shop (thanks Fri Bike Shop) and soon my right knee started hurting. Outside of Vejle I gave up. My knee was hurting too much and I was afraid of damaging it by continuing. I placed myself at a Burger King, charging my smartphone and communicated with different festival participants trying to get picked up and go by car the last distance. I searched the net for info about the public transports, but did not get it. After a couple of hours I decided to keep on biking adjusting my speed to my knee.
My biking was quite slow, my knee was hurting and it became evening and night while I was approaching Sønderborg. It felt that the night lasted forever. I continued biking and in the Sunday morning light I eventually climbed the last hill and on my way down I saw Efterskolen Epos, the festival site. The time was 6 in the morning and I crashed into the bed totally whacked, but finally at my goal.
After sleeping most of Sunday I let myself being absorbed by the festival and enjoyed giving and taking part in workshops, connecting with old and new friends.
Tips for the future
Some practical stuff I learned during the trip were:
- Test your equipment before going on your big adventure. I’m happy that my first trailer broke down as early as it did.
- Don’t schedule for the perfect trip. Shit will happen and delays are unavoidable. Make space for unexpected events.
- Don’t try to squeeze in as many kilometers as possible in your daily goal. Make sure you enjoy the ride and take a rest now and then.
Other things I learned:
- Don’t underestimate the power of support along the way. It was fantastic to visit a couple of my friends, even for just a few hours. Take the opportunity to let people contribute to you!
- The mind will almost always give up before the body. When my knee started to hurt and I gave up, I finally continued and biked another 130 kilometers.